


neither can the floods drown it

by morningstar921



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bi Dean Winchester, Canon Divergent, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel is Bad at Feelings (Supernatural), Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean Winchester is Not Okay, Destiel - Freeform, Eileen only makes a very brief appearance, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, First Kiss, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Love Confessions, M/M, Sam/Eileen (minor) - Freeform, Season/Series 15, Series Finale, all four of these boys deserve better, and i might as well join the bandwagon, and listen, but it's gonna take an army to fix this trainwreck, chuck's a bastard but he wouldn't have done me dirty like this, i don't even ship destiel, jack is not god, just two repressed bros, let the toddler go home with his dads, like seriously, maybe nerfing god was a mistake, rewriting the finale, s15e19 Coda, the series finale was the nail in MY back, the spn writers are my villain origin story, we don’t talk about s15e20, you know how the story goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28376727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningstar921/pseuds/morningstar921
Summary: Even when the dust settles, there's still something left to choke on.This is supposed to be their happy ending -- no more Chuck, no more apocalypses, just the four Winchesters and the open road. Without Cas, it feels like the cosmic joke is still running. Dean’s first instinct is to pray.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 79
Collections: Very good Fanfiction





	neither can the floods drown it

**Author's Note:**

> (Title comes from The Song of Solomon)
> 
> This story is brought to you by the letters F and U, because holy shit it should not be that hard for industry professionals to tie up their own loose ends, wtf
> 
> For the sake of this fix-it fic, let us all collectively pretend Jack never became God because all I want is for this kid and his three dads to be happy. Instead of fucking off into the rain and the sand (eugh), Jack had only enough God-mojo to bring everyone back (except Cas, more on that later) before it dried up and left him at regular power.

Even when the dust settles, there’s still something left to choke on.

Dean spends that first night back in the Bunker alone, Miracle’s head heavy in his lap. Sam is at Eileen’s house, left there at Dean’s insistence. “This is the second time in what, two months maybe, since you’ve lost her,” he’d told Sam. “Go check in on her.”

Sam, looking at Dean with those stupid pound-puppy eyes, had said, “Just wait here, I’ll be quick. I know she’s alive, I just… I just need to see her.”

“I get it,” Dean said. He meant it. “Go on, get out of here, scamp.”

“You’ll wait?”

“Absolutely.” A lie. A deserved lie. And with Jack fast asleep in the backseat of the Impala, wiped out from Chuck’s powers burning straight through him like a short wick, Dean sped off from the curb. When he pulled the car into the Bunker, he’d carried Jack to his bed, grabbed a couple beers from the kitchen, and plopped himself down in one of the library’s hard-backed chairs. It’s where he sits now, lost in the dregs, choking on the sharp core of grief in his gut. The pain hits like a bullet with no exit wound. When he’ll find the time to dig it out, he’s not sure yet. 

Jack had choked out something about Cas before he’d collapsed in the middle of the road. Something about Cas being stuck. Not that it matters. Dean pops open a fresh bottle, holds the rim to his mouth but doesn’t drink yet. This wouldn’t be the first time a Winchester was trapped on some nightmare world. Wouldn’t be the first time a Winchester was left on one, either. Purgatory comes to mind, and/or the Cage.

Miracle whines. The dog nudges his head against Dean’s hand. Fingers stiff, Dean scratches the spot behind one of Miracle’s ears. “I miss him too,” Dean says, voice hoarse. If he’d cried quietly on the ride home, fingers locked around the steering wheel while the sobs caught in the back of his throat to keep Jack from waking, well then that’s between Dean and the god that doesn’t exist anymore.

“You know,” he continues, “I think I’d bring him back if I knew how.” The library is vast and empty without someone else in it. Dean’s voice reverberates off the shelves and the walls, refracted back at him. “Even if I have to jumpstart the next apocalypse, I think I could do it. We took down fucking God. What’s the Empty to God, right? But then I start thinking, like right now, if I could risk losing Sammy and Jack for that.”

The end of every apocalypse has, for the past several years, always meant starting a new one. No time to breathe in the space between, only another snap-neck bid to save what remains this time. Even with Chuck gone, it seems that the story still writes itself. To save a Winchester, sacrifice the world and a bit of yourself. After all these years, Dean’s numb to the absurdity but he’d still call it unfair anyway. 

Dean downs the rest of the bottle and massages the bridge of his nose. His hand stills in Miracle’s fur. The dog whimpers. “I’m tired, man. I’m old, I’m tired, I’m done. I just want the easy way out for once.” And a place to retire, some bungalow on a beach, a jetty to go fishing in the afternoon. Somewhere with no monsters, or nothing more complicated than a nest of vamps every other Tuesday. Something somewhere normal. 

It wouldn’t feel right without Cas. It wouldn’t feel right without Sam either, or Jack. But Dean Winchester is used to moving on with some empty pieces. Who cares if this one feels like it took a whole chunk out of him?

In his pocket, Dean’s phone rings. It’s Sam. He lets the call time out, go to voicemail. When he’s sure Sam has hung up, he puts the phone to his ear and listens. 

_Dean! I get it, I really do, but I told you to wait for me. If you need some space, fine. Eileen’ll give me a ride back in the morning. Just… just text me that you’re okay. Alright, I’ll see you later._

Dean texts back: _Don’t have too much fun ;)_

The little text bubble icon pops up under Sam’s name. Then: _Shut up dean._ Dean snorts, closes his phone, and slides it across the table. Sammy deserves a night off. Things might go sideways later, as they so often do, but at least for the moment his little brother can have a break. 

“Alright, let’s pack it up.” Dean stretches as he stands from the chair, popping the joints in his spine with a rippling crackle. He groans, and then he spots a glint of dull metal on the other side of the table. Billie’s scythe, dropped when the Empty snatched her up. Dean had thrown it over here after… After. 

_(I love you)_

All of a sudden, Dean is a live wire of rage. He coils his hands into fists, flattens them harshly against the edge of the table to keep himself from hitting something or snapping the scythe over his knee like a stick. 

It’s Billie’s fault, and Chuck’s fault, and everyone else’s fault that Cas is gone. Not even dead. _I love you,_ and he’d said it crying, but he’d been smiling too and goddamnit if that doesn’t hurt worse. A foot to the face would have been kinder than Cas’s sticky-sweet confession, a bargain for Dean’s life against Cas’s own. And the angel had had the audacity to call it the happiest moment of his life. What a bunch of shit. 

“You son of a bitch,” Deans whispers, low and gravelly and dead. “You don’t just say that shit and run, I—”

The bastard angel put himself there. Cas can find his own way home.

Dean sniffs, turning abruptly on his heel. That’s the alcohol talking, the grief blistering on his skin. He doesn’t want to mean it. After years of calling out to Cas in a panic, Dean’s first instinct is to pray. A quick _I’m sorry,_ amen-less and a sinner’s best repent. He flips down the covers of his bed, crawls in with Miracle at his back, and lays listlessly for half the night staring at the ceiling. The bloody jacket hanging on the foot of his bed strikes a phantom ache into his shoulder. 

Once more, Dean sends a prayer into the void. _You gotta come back, man. That’s what we do, we defy the odds._ When he finally does fall asleep, it is shallow and dreamless — while deep in the Empty, something smothered to sleep stirs.

* * *

The morning begins quiet as any other. Dean rolls out of bed with a prayer on his tongue, something stricken that he swallows down. Instead he whistles to wake Miracle. Together they meet Sam in the kitchen. There’s a plate of bacon on the table and Sam’s busy scrambling eggs on the stovetop. 

Dean slips Miracle a few pieces of bacon. He tears into his own piece, taking one large bite before spitting it out into his hand. 

“Dean, that’s disgusting,” Sam says, not even turning around.

“No, this affront to food is disgusting. My mouth feels violated.” Dean makes an act of pretending to retch, which Sam promptly ignores like the bastard he is. 

“It’s bacon.” Sam scoops a helping of eggs onto his own plate and joins Dean at the table. He tosses another piece of bacon at Miracle. “See, even the dog likes it.”

“I trusted you, Sam. I trusted you too,” he adds to Miracle. The dog quirks its head and grumbles. Across the table, there’s a half-empty packet of bacon. Dean reads the label. “Vegan? Really, Sam? We save the world and you want to celebrate with vegan bacon.”

Sam shrugs. “If you want a heart attack, that’s your business.” He pointedly ignores Dean’s look of scorn. “Eileen says hi, by the way.”

Dean immediately perks back up. He flicks another piece of the imposter-bacon into Miracle’s mouth. “Speaking of, how was the reunion?” It only takes a quick waggling of his eyebrows to make Sam choke on his eggs. “Something worthy of The Notebook, I hope. Or Fifty Shades, I don’t judge.”

“I hate you.”

“Noted. But seriously, she’s okay?”

“She doesn’t remember much. It’s all just lost time.”

“Huh. Probably for the best.”

“It was nice seeing her again.” Sam smiles shyly, looking a thousand yards off into his eggs. Kid’s lovestruck, Dean thinks. He hasn’t seen Sammy so smitten since Jess, so of course he has to press it. That’s what a big brother’s for, isn’t it?

Dean leans forward over the table. “I bet it was,” he says. “Come on, give me the details. We can gossip like high school girls. If you’re nice, maybe I’ll even paint your nails.”

“I’m sure…” Sam leans back in his chair. “It was just nice. She would have come in to say hi, but…” An edge of concern creeps into Sam’s voice by the end, and oops! There goes the light banter, scattered like buckshot.

Dean’s expression immediately darkens. Holding his ground, he grits out, “But what, Sam.”

“Dean…”

“Sam, I swear to god—” Classic Sam, trying to play fucking Dr. Phil as if Dean’s not pretending on purpose that everything’s okay. Just one day, that’s all he wants. He starts to stand up from the chair but Sam, with his damn sasquatch arms, catches his wrist. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I’m still upset about Cas, so I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling.”

Dean wrenches his arm free. “And I told you, I’m fine.” At his feet, Miracle whimpers, suddenly uneasy. Dean hushes him with a firm hand atop his head. 

“So you didn’t drink yourself to oblivion last night?” The accusation is sharp and biting. 

“No, actually,” Dean snipes back, and he's relieved that this at least is the truth. Sure, he was drunk, but blackout? Never.

The space between him and Sam goes thick and stifling. It feels just as tense as it always does when one of them is lying. Nothing about the situation is any of Sam’s business though, so Dean finds that he doesn’t really care. Taking a steadying breath through the heavy air, Dean is about to head out of the kitchen when Sam says, quiet enough that Dean barely hears him, “It almost doesn’t feel real, you know?”

Memories of the drive back home last night flood Dean’s mind, how surreal the quiet had felt. It wouldn’t have taken much to convince him then that it was one of Chuck’s endings still in control. Maybe it is. Dean nods slowly. “Bunker feels empty without his feathery ass hanging around?”

Yeah,” Sam laughs. The sound is haunted. Dean notices now the dark circles under Sam’s eyes. The stress of the last few days is catching up to the both of them. “I almost expected his signature ‘hello Sam’ when I came back this morning, but then… well.”

Dean doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. 

Sam clears his throat. He’s been working up to something, and he’s clearing the space for it now. “What happened to him that night? Was it Billie? You never really said.”

And there it is. Like an infected wound, the grief coiled inside Dean burns him hot and sickly. He never intended to tell Sam the whole truth _(I love you),_ and maybe he won’t. Depends on where his mouth takes him once he starts speaking but honestly, what does he have to lose at this point? He is just beginning to speak, his tongue clumsy around half-formed thoughts, when there’s the sound of banging books from the library followed by a muffled cry of “it’s not fair!”

Jack, angry and bitter and ready to burn the world down for Cas. Never let it be said the kid isn’t a spitfire. 

Sam sighs. “Was he like this last night?”

“No.” Dean leans his head against the doorframe. “He didn’t even wake up. I had to carry him to his room.” 

“Alright.” Sam stands up, shoulders hunched tight about his neck, and points to the dishes. “You stay here and clean up a bit, I’ll go talk to Jack. We’re not done talking about Cas, though.”

Any other day, Dean would have grumbled about clearing the dishes. Today he waves Sam aside with a mumbled “yeah yeah” and sets to work. Miracle stands in the doorway, ears perked up like he wants to eavesdrop but can’t bring himself to leave Dean. 

A layer of grease covers the plate that had the bacon on it. Dean brings it over for Miracle to lick. “We’ll have to get you some dog food soon,” he says. “Though if I were you, I’d want to stick to the people food, huh?” When Miracle sits back on his haunches, done, Dean returns to the sink and attacks it with the scrub brush. 

From in the kitchen, he can barely hear Sam with Jack. Their conversation is low but strained. There’s a slight hiccuping sound, and Dean thinks Jack might be crying. 

“You hear that, jackass?” There’s no way Cas can hear him from the Empty, but Dean finds himself praying again in spite of it. “You made the kid sad. Hope it keeps you rolling in your grave.”

The dish is clean. Dean starts on it with a towel, sets it aside for Sam to put away later. He reaches over for Sam’s plate next. “If you came back, you could talk him down yourself.” This plate he cleans quickly and stacks atop the other. “He doesn’t love me or Sam like he loves you.” 

He feels the corners of his eyes begin to prick now. He doubles over the counter now, arms steeled out straight in front of him, and closes his eyes tight. “Goddamn it, Cas.” The tension rolls over Dean full-body before he grips it tight in his chest and shoves it back down into a pit. “If you came back, I could quit feeling this way, too. What do you say to that?” And this comes out almost a growl, left blunt by the shortness of Dean’s breath. 

He hears Jack’s voice start to come through the walls now. “I tried to bring him back, Sam. I promise.”

“I know.” That’s Sam, sounding exhausted but sympathetic as always.

“You don’t understand, though. I tried,” and there Dean lifts his head from his chest, moving to the doorway to hear better. “I tried, but it was like there was something… I don’t know, holding him back? He was stuck.” That would explain what Jack had said back in that small town. Sam knows the Empty’s involved now too, and that’ll be a conversation for later. How thrilling. 

Without missing a beat, Sam says, “Jack, you can’t blame yourself. Cas knew what he was doing.”

“Yes, I can! And now he needs me, and I don’t know what to do.”

“You said he’s not dead, right? So we can try to find him. But…” Sam hesitates, the next thing he says dipping out of Dean’s hearing range. Miracle, apparently the noisiest dog on the planet, is already halfway down the hallway. Dean follows suit. 

Jack, sounding deeply anguished, says, “We didn’t think it was possible to bring Eileen back, but we did. So now I have to find something for this.”

“I just need you to prepare yourself for the fact that maybe… maybe we don’t get him back.”

Nobody notices Dean or Miracle enter the library, not until Dean says, “That’s not an option. We don’t abandon family.” It doubles as a prayer. Just in case.

And without missing a beat, Sam pulls over one of the books Jack had thrown around and opens it to its first page. “You heard the man,” he says. 

“I’ll grab us some beers,” Dean says, and he smiles genuinely for the first time since this whole disaster. Sam makes a disgruntled noise and Jack calls after him something about it being too early to drink, to which Dean laughs. “Not if you’re a Winchester, kid.”

* * *

“Why is there never a single useful thing in these books when something important is on the line? That’s what I want to know.” Dean slams the book shut — some old dusty tome written in that awful medieval scrawl, no more helpful than any of the other several books strewn about him on the table. He groans, leaning back in the chair to pop his joints. 

Jack remains undeterred. He doesn’t even look up when he says, “We’ll find something.” He scribbles something incoherent on a pad of paper next to him, then scribbles it out with a frustrated sigh.

“I know.” Dean does not reach for a new book.

Sam adds, pitched low, “For better or for worse.” At that, Dean snorts. They’ll stumble onto some messy hail mary, one that’ll either have them in debt to another sketchy bastard or one that’ll open up another catastrophic can of words, but a solution they’ll find nonetheless. Of this Dean’s sure.

“Well, you two look like you have things covered. Personally, I think my eyes might explode soon.” Dean rubs the balls of his hands against his eyes for emphasis. The chair screeches against the floorboards when he rises. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, we’ll manage just fine,” Sam says, cheeky. Even Jack looks up from his book with a smirk tugging at his lips. 

Dean tosses a casual wave goodbye over his shoulder before exiting the Bunker. It’s not often that any of them spend time in what passes for the Bunker’s front or back lawn, not that it has much of an exterior to boast of. The tall looming walls look more like the walls of an abandoned factory than a home, and the woods surrounding the property look dreary on a good day. Still, it’s as good a place as any to sit and be alone, thoughtless. Dean might even say, if pressed, that the fresh breeze feels refreshing compared to the Bunker’s recycled air. 

There’s not much grass here, but Dean finds a big enough patch to lay himself down on. He’s out there for close to fifteen minutes, arms folded behind his head and his eyes closed against the sun, before the door to the Bunker creaks open. He opens one eye, sees Sam walking towards him with a sandwich on a plate. 

“I made you lunch.” Sam drops the plate onto Dean’s lap, no room made for a refusal. Dean pokes at and, finding it satisfactory, bites a chunk out of it.

“You know,” Dean says, purposely with his mouth full to make Sam squirm, “I was just thinking we should find a new Mrs. Butters, but you’re looking pretty good for the job. I’ll see if she left a spare coat behind, you can start tomorrow.”

“Ha-ha. You’re hilarious.”

“If I ever quit hunting, I’m coming for Conan’s job. Or maybe Fallon’s, easier pickings.”

“I’ll put you in the retirement home first. You’re crotchety enough they won’t even notice you’re forty-five.”

Dean elbows Sam playfully in the gut, knocking him off balance. “Don’t think they won’t take you, too. You have the interests of someone’s grandfather.”

They take the next few minutes in silence. A brief patch of light breaks through a gap in the clouds, then disappears as the clouds pass over the sun again. Nearby, a small animal rustles in the bushes. 

Dean senses Sam’s nervous energy rolling off him in waves. He tries to ignore it, but it grows harder to do when Sam starts shifting and clearing his throat. “You come out here for the view,” Dean finally says, “or are you trying to talk about feelings again?”

“We never finished talking about Cas,” Sam says, looking uncomfortably to the side.

Funny, isn’t it, that Sammy’s so uncomfortable? Dean scrubs his face, sitting up and turns to look at his brother. “Okay.” His voice is steadier than he expects it to be. “Ask your questions.” Every bone in Dean’s body wants to bolt. He keeps his ass planted to the ground. Sam will keep hounding him otherwise, so Dean might as well get this over with now.

“You’ll be honest with me?” And oh, Dean could slap Sam for that. “No lying, no leaving things out, no—”

“Do we really need to go over those again?”

“Our track record is shit. So yeah.”

“Fine, yes, nothing but the truth.” Dean raises his hands in mock surrender. “Just rip the bandaid off already, Sam.”

Sam starts slow. “Jack said the Empty took Cas. Is that right?”

“Yeah. Took Billie too. Some kind of grudge.”

“And it hates Cas too,” Sam agrees. “But how’d it even get him? Jack made it seem like Cas wasn’t supposed to be there, like he’s not actually dead.”

A shiver rips through Dean. Whether from the wind or something else, it doesn’t matter. “That’s because he’s not. It… it took him. Popped out of some rift looking like a Venom wannabe, snatched up Cas and Billie, and left. Didn’t even look twice at me.” And why would it, when Dean poses less than a threat?

“Yeah, but how?” Sam’s jaw clenches the way it does when he’s trying to puzzle something out. He stares off down the road as if the answer lies somewhere along the yellow line. “The Empty told me itself it can’t come here without being summoned.”

Dean speaks haltingly now. He knew Sam would start prying at territory Dean would rather not go, but working out the words is a different beast than merely anticipating them. “Cas made a deal with the Empty a while back to save Jack. Said when he felt true happiness, whatever the hell that means, it’d come collect his ass.”

“Oh, so same sacrificial bullshit as always?” Sam laughs, a short huff like he’s run out of breath. Trust a hunter to find the gallows humor. 

The two of them allow a lull to open — Sam while the gears turn in his head, Dean while he hopes Sam might quit the conversation where it stands. Sam has the drop on Cas’s so-called death now, end of story. There’s no reason why he needs to know the rest.When Sam finally settles on a new question though, he presents it with frustrating earnestness. “You said happy. But you guys were on Billie’s hit list, so why the hell would Cas be happy? He wasn’t… you know…”

Dean thinks that might be a tear in the corner of Sam’s eye. “No, god no,” Dean says hurriedly, and watches some of the tension release from Sam’s shoulders. The tension in his own body remains taut as a rod. “Fuck if I know what he was on about. Do I look like his keeper?” Keep it light, keep the levity, maybe Sam’ll get distracted.

But Sam was always, unfortunately, too smart for his own good. “You promised you wouldn’t lie, Dean.”

“Excuse me?” Dean whirls on Sam. “I’m not lying!” But even as he says so, the memory of Cas’s voice comes bursting into Dean’s skull, roaring like blood in his ears: _happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being._ Of all the repressed bullshit… If Cas had said something like this in the early days, back when he still tried to maintain his lordliness, Dean wouldn’t have batted an eye at it. But now, after assimilating a shred of humanity? Cas deserved to be selfish for a change. 

“Fuck, Sam,” Dean says. There’s water on his face. Dean collapses over on himself, catching his head in both hands. “He said…” Dean shakes his head. The grief implodes like a mortar shell in his chest, and Dean’s body quivers with the aftershock. “He was being stupid. It didn’t make any sense.”

One of Sam’s hands comes up awkwardly to rub Dean’s back. “What did he say?” Sam repeats. 

The words spill over, and Dean confesses: “He told me he loves me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sam wheezes. 

“Mhm.” Understatement of the century. Imagine that: an eons-old angel of the lord so chickenshit he ensures his own immediate death rather than risk some pesky moral’s rejection. It’s laughable, really, and Dean strangles himself on it. “He really thinks yearning — fucking yearning, man, like we’re teens again — is the height of happiness. Think we should have splurged on therapy for him?”

“Okay, alright,” Sam says, still processing, “when Cas gets back we gotta talk to him about timing. And emotions. Noted.” He swiped a hand over his scalp. “God, he says he loves you. And?”

“And? And what?” 

“What did you say back to him?”

This puts Dean on guard. “Nothing.” He knows how cruel it makes him sound, sees it in the grimace on Sam’s face.

“Not even to let him down gentle?” Sam doesn’t deviate from pressing Dean further, not even when Dean flips him off. “Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not? I couldn’t —” Dean realizes now he doesn’t really know why. There has been too much else to focus on, namely all the _how could you_ grief, that there hasn’t been much time to interrogate the why. He settles on whatever BS cover comes to him first. At the very least it’s not a full lie when he says: “I wanted to say something but Billie was there, and then the Empty just… And then he was gone.” 

“Can I… Can I ask what you wanted to say?”

It’s striking to Dean how much he could have and did not say. “I don’t know,” he tells Sam slowly, another white lie. He feels an impression of the answer laying like lead on his tongue, though he does not trust himself to speak it. “I really don’t know.”

Sam seems to sense Dean’s struggle. Rather than dig into the wound, Sam mercifully claps Dean on the shoulder and heads back into the Bunker. The research won’t finish itself and all that. “You should come back in soon,” Sam adds, “before it gets too cold out.”

“Okay, mother goose.”

“You mean mother hen.”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.” Dean releases air in a quiet life. It gives Sam permission to chuckle too, a break in the tension, before leaving Dean to himself again.

The air is starting to bite, nightfall already encroaching on the afternoon. Goddamn daylight savings. Dean stays outside a little longer. The cold is good for keeping his head clear, though Sam’s question still buzzes strong. The answer on his tongue is starting to come up too strong like next-day booze on the way out. “Can never make things easy for myself, can I?” Dean asks. A gust of wind swallows it down.

He flops back down onto the ground, never mind the way the stiff grass pokes into the back of his neck. He was not entirely honest with Sam: _Don’t do this_ wasn’t precisely nothing, but Dean doesn’t think it was much of something either. “What was I supposed to say, huh? What would have made you listen, you fucking lovesick angel?” There he goes talking to Cas again like there’s any reception in the Empty. It helps, though. Makes a punching bag out of thin air.

Dean works the problem out in his head, running down Cas’s last moments over again in his head. Plug in absolute silence: a bust. Plug in a sterner plea: another bust. Cas was working on flawed logic. If all it takes is fucking _being_ to be happy, then the Empty always comes and it always takes Cas. Game over, bad ending, do not pass go. Another failure in the life of Dean Winchester.

Sam had said earlier something about ‘letting him down gently.’ A _thanks, but no thanks?_ Cheesy, kind douchey, and honestly makes Dean feel a little sick to his stomach; it doesn’t sit right. He tries it anyway, in the name of whatever couch psychology this whole bit is, and still Cas leaves. Rejection can’t get an angel down if he expects it from the start. 

Dean’s mouth is full with the response he cannot bring himself to acknowledge, the one scenario he has not yet played through his mind: _me too_. Touching on it feels like handling something off limits. Dean’s never liked the parts of things he can’t understand though, and the burn of pushing through a challenge will be a welcome change from the cold sting of grief, so Dean rewinds the scene in his head, rewrites the script, and presses play.

The Empty still comes but this time Cas finds a renewed fighting spirit. Somehow the two of them emerge from that room victorious over both Death and the Empty. It’s the happy ending Dean’s been pining for. 

It is surprising, too, that it doesn’t play out as sourly as he expected too. Dean’s body feels suddenly light and warm, the cold outside air kept at bay. _Me too,_ he could have said. It doesn’t sound very much like a lie, and damn if it doesn’t scare Dean to think he might have been sitting on this feeling for years. Back in the early days of their acquaintance, when Cas had just starting sticking around, Dean had just been happy to have a friend again — an angel to boot too, harder to kill than all the others. Now, he thinks, he can understand what Cas had said about just being. It had been enough, with Cas always by his side, to call this thing friendship. Why risk admitting what it really was when there was nothing broken to fix? 

“I’m in love with my best friend,” Dean whispers. Nothing changes, to say the words out loud. The world doesn’t implode, so that’s a good sign. Dean’s heart does a weird fluttery thing and his cheeks burn. “Shit, man, I’m too old to be this repressed. I feel like I’m in some dollar-store romance novel. Ten years of fucking pining — that’s gotta be a record.” 

He sits back up, cracks the stiffness from his joints. Time to head back inside before he catches a chill. Jack and Sam are still in the library when he steps through the front door. “Hey, Dean,” Jack calls, waving. 

“You’re still making dinner later, right?” Sam calls. 

“Sure thing, Sammy.” Dean snatches the book he was reading off the table and continues past them, ignoring Sam’s protests that he better not make burgers again. “Holler if you make any breakthroughs, I’ll be in my room.” 

Once there, Dean tosses the book onto his desk. He flops down onto the bed. Miracle comes up beside him, nose cold and wet against the side of Dean’s head. Dean pats the side of the bed next to him, offering the space up to Miracle, and wraps both arms around the dog. “Did you hear, Mir? Daddy’s having feelings.” Miracle responds by licking straight across Dean’s face, wet and slobbery. 

“I’m in love with Cas,” Dean says once more to himself, and then, just because he can, he offers it up as a prayer. “I love you, too.” It’s a long shot and a half that Cas can even hear this, but Dean likes the sudden idea that maybe it’ll ping him anyway, that the Empty is only like being in a coma. It makes Cas seem more salvageable than thinking of it like a grave. 

* * *

Dean makes a habit out of praying. None are very special or grandiose, more akin to a goodmorning text or a “how’s it hanging” message. Dean can’t quite say why he sends them other than that he can and, if he’s lucky, he’s annoying Cas with their frequency. Can’t let the angel get too comfy over in the Empty. 

Eileen comes to Sam with news of a vamp nest nearby, asks him if he wants to help. Sam mentions it casually, tossing and turning it over in his speech as if he’s not sure whether he should go or not. Even after the brothers’ talk (their awful, sappy, let’s-pretend-we-never-had-it talk), he’s still wary of leaving Dean for too long. 

“I’m not going to do anything, Sammy,” Dean tells him, barely hiding the exasperation in his voice. “Let a man be sad, will you? Manly tears and all that crap. Isn’t that your whole MO?” Then he raises his eyebrow, a look to say _don’t be a bigger moron than usual,_ and Sam folds immediately. 

“You should come with us though,” Sam says, and Dean has to wonder if maybe his brother’s been playing a convoluted long-con to get Dean out of the Bunker. “It’s been awhile since you and Eileen have seen each other.” 

Dean’s initial thought is that someone should stay back and keep up the search for Cas. Not that any of the library’s books have turned up anything useful yet. So he shrugs, says, “Sure. Always a fun hunt with Eileen around anyway,” and that’s that. He sends out a quick last-minute prayer to Cas before he leaves, something like a _gone hunting, be back soon_ note, and then Dean’s too caught up in the minutiae of slaying vampires to do more than send out a vague feeling here and there. A cross-dimensional Facebook poke, he likes to think of it. 

Between the four of them (with Miracle appointed by Dean as the Impala’s watchdog), the hunt goes down fairly smoothly as far as those things go. Jack forces them to stop at a hokey roadside diner right off the highway for a celebratory lunch. Eileen eggs Dean into tag-teaming the diner’s infamous burger stack challenge and together, as Sam looks on with comical nausea, they manage to slog through the entire dish of grease-soaked meat and bread. The diner hangs a photo of them on the wall, signed and dated and all. 

Eileen elbows Dean in his side with a cheeky grin. “Admit it, Dean. I did all the heavy lifting here.” 

“Hey, hey, hey.” Dean puffs out his chest, squares his shoulders. “Spare a man his pride. Nobody out-eats the Meat Man.” 

Jack chokes on his chocolate milk while Sam groans with a shake of his head. “You really gotta stop saying that, it’s weird,” Sam says. 

“The more it bothers you, the more he’s going to say it,” Eileen points out. She gets a sly look to her eye, glancing over at Dean before saying to Sam, “But I guess that makes me the Meat Woman now, so… get used to it?” 

Dean’s heart swells with pride. “Woman after my own heart.” 

Eileen takes her own car home, reminding Sam to invite her back to the Bunker sometime soon. Sam promises he will, Dean mentions something about a roast recipe he’s been meaning to try that catches her attention, and then they’re on their separate ways. By the time they get back home, bruised and bloody but well-fed, it’s been well over two weeks since Cas disappeared. 

“Alright, team,” Dean says, clapping his hands, “back to the books we go.” He turns the handle of the door, steps through the threshold, and stops dead in his tracks when he spots the oozing black void hung above the library table. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” 

Miracle bumps his nose against the back of Dean’s leg. The dog growls low and fierce, darting between Dean’s legs to bound down the stairs after the void. He lets loose a loud bark. 

“What the hell is that?” Sam says, pushing past Dean. 

Jack follows, streaking past both Sam and Dean on the stairs. “It looks like something’s trying to come through it.” He points to where the black ooze is pulsing, the edges of the void stretching to accommodate whatever this something is. 

Dean grabs a shotgun from off the wall, checks to see if it’s loaded — silver bullets, which he’s hoping this creature is at least allergic too — and takes aim. “This is just great.” He sighs. “How’s your mojo, Jack? You fully charged yet?” 

“Sorta?” Jack flexes his hands out in front of himself. Briefly, his eyes glow before snuffing out again. “I haven’t really tested them out recently.” 

From somewhere behind Dean, Sam cocks his own gun at the void. “It’ll do,” he says tersely. 

Dean snorts. “It’s gonna have to. God, is it too much to ask for a break? We were doing really well there, we really were.” 

“Not the time, Dean.” 

“Shut up, Sam.” 

What looks like a hand presses against the void’s oozing membrane, thick as slime. A second hand comes to join it, pressing and pressing without managing to break through. The thing seems to fall into the membrane now, a mass slamming into the black ooze and nearly falling out of the void entirely. Dean taps his foot impatiently. For a moment, he considers firing a round into it before it’s even managed to pop free, then thinks better of it. Let the creature claw its way through first, then blast its ass. He’ll still save the questions for later. 

He sees a tear open up along its middle and two pale fingers — human-shaped fingers, but aren’t they always human-shaped? — scramble to pull the rest of the void apart. Out pops the rest of an arm, one leg and then the other, until the whole creature finally stumbles loose and shakes itself off. When it straightens, Dean’s grip on the shotgun wavers. He’d know that face anywhere. 

“Cas!” Jack, the first to overcome the moment’s shock, launches himself across the room. The boy nearly knocks Cas over grabbing him into a hug. Cas closes his eyes and pulls Jack closer; the top of his head rests atop Jack’s, and he says very quietly, “I missed you.” 

Though the void still has not closed behind Cas, it no longer pulses as it did before. Both Sam and Dean lower their guns. Miracle visibly relaxes next to Dean, sitting back on his haunches and looking at Cas with lazy interest. 

“It’s good to see you again, man.” Sam hugs Cas briefly, reaching over Jack who has not entirely let go of Cas yet. “Is it just you, or should we expect guests soon?” 

Cas, disheveled from his entrance and looking slightly confused, glances back at the void. “I’m not sure.” 

Sam’s eyes dart towards his gun. “That’s… Okay. Problem for later.” He says something more, but Dean’s ears feel suddenly muffled by cotton, his vision tunneling until all he sees is Cas in the flesh. If the whole instance of Cas’s disappearance had felt unreal, then this feels like Dean tripped straight into Wonderland. 

He catches Cas’s eyes from across the room. Dean’s mouth is dry, his tongue sluggish. For all the confidence he had in his prayers, he finds none of it now. _I love you too_ comes out as a string of garbled sounds. Cas’s brows scrunch together and even Sam gives Dean a strange look. 

Without shaking Jack loose from his side, Cas says softly, “Hi, Dean.” 

Dean finds his voice, croaking out, “Hi, Cas.” God, they really need to talk. Privately, he thinks, because this really isn’t something he wants to hash out with his brother or Jack in the room. 

“You got a dog,” Cas says, pointing at Miracle. The dog is laying on his side, nose tucked under his front paw. 

“Sue me.” Dean shrugs. “I’m going soft.” 

“You’ve always been soft, Dean.” And oh, if that doesn’t make Dean’s face blush. 

Sam, sweet merciful Sam, clears his throat. “So, uh, what’s the game plan?” 

“We should close the rift.” Jack extricates himself from Cas and examines the rift up close. “This is a door to the Empty, right?” 

Cas nods. “I’m not entirely sure what opened this rift or why I was able to leave so easily. It’s very possible something could follow me out, but there’s no way to know for sure.” 

“You were never dead, though,” Jack muses, “so maybe that’s why you were able to walk out. Maybe all the other souls are stuck sleeping.” 

Dean scowls. Since when are things ever that easy? “There’s a catch somewhere. There always is. Didn’t everything wake up after you exploded?” 

“They did.” Cas prods the edges of the rift with his finger. It ripples under his touch. “The Empty has put most of them back to sleep, myself included. But it wasn’t an easy slumber, which is how I managed to wake up.” 

“So we close the rift,” Sam says. “I can probably hobble together some of Rowena’s spells for that.” 

All of Dean’s aches decide in this moment to flare up. “Go team,” he says halfheartedly, pulling out a chair and falling into it. He groans. “Make it quick, Sammy, I’m exhausted.” Sam pays him no mind, already reaching for one of the spellbooks. Jack sets about clearing the table for him. 

Cas, for his part, barely moves from the spot where the void spat him out. He looks every bit as exhausted as Dean feels, if not more so. 

“Sit down before you fall over. Jesus Christ, man, you look like shit.” Perhaps not the kindest thing to say to your crush, Dean thinks, but who gives a damn at his age? He kicks out the chair next to him and pats the seat. Haltingly, Cas takes it. 

* * *

Several hours later, and the void remains suspended in the library. Dean is half-asleep, jerking back awake every time his head lolls. “Go take a nap or something, I’ll wake you up if anything happens,” Sam says, his own head resting on his fist as he flips again through Rowena’s spellbook. 

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Dean pushes back from the table. Surprisingly, Cas trails him a few moments later. So the angel wants to talk. Dean can work with that. He’ll sleep later. Cas does not follow Dean into his room, preferring to lurk out in the hallway instead. Dean makes a sweeping motion with his arm as if to pull Cas in that way. 

“I know you wanted to sleep,” Cas begins, only coming as far as the doorway, “but I was hoping we could talk.” 

“Come on, all the way in, I promise I don’t bite.” Dean plops down on the bed, indicating the space next to him. Cas chooses to stand in the space in front of Dean. Good enough. “I wanted to talk too.” And that’s as far as Dean gets. There’s so much to say, it spins unorderly in his head. 

Cas spares him by beginning first. “I don’t know where to start.” One of his hands comes up to the back of his head, tugging at the short hairs there, a habit Dean hasn’t seen him do too often. “I’ll admit I didn’t expect to come back.” 

Now how’s that for a starting place? Dean feels a low simmer of hurt build up in his gut. Before Cas can edge another word out, Dean is already up on his feet. “If you ever pull an assbackward trick like that again, I’ll kill you myself.” 

Firmly rooted to the floor, Cas says, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

Dean has to laugh at that, a broken puff of air between his teeth. “Was I really that much of a dick to you that you thought I wouldn’t miss you?” A furrow pinches Cas’s brow in the deer-caught-in-headlights way that Dean loves, that he ignores in favor of what has to be said. “I mourned for you, Cas. Just like I always do when you’re gone.” 

Cas does take a half step away now. He does not look away from Dean, though. “I had to save you. I will not apologize for that.” 

“I’m not asking you to, I’m asking you not to jump off the cliff every time someone tries to throw me off of it!” 

“And what would you have had me do instead? Let Billie kill us both, leave Chuck to Sam and Jack?” A blazing fury ignites in Cas’s eyes. It almost burns to look at. “I did exactly what you would have done if circumstances had been reversed.” 

All the fight leaves Dean just as it flares in Cas. Fucking hell, the angel has a point, and Dean doesn’t like it. Dean collapses back on the bed. “So we gotta go cold turkey on the sacrifice, noted. Make sure you forward that to Sam and Jack, lord knows they could use the memo, too.” This isn’t at all how he wanted this conversation to go, he realizes now. He feels deflated all of a sudden. 

Something in Cas must deflate too, because the angel joins Dean on the bed now. He perches gingerly on the edge of it. Eyes facing the wall, Cas says, “I meant what I said, you know. Back in that room. I need you to know that.” And the way he says it, clipped and rigid, pinches a nerve. “I won’t apologize for that either, but I noticed you seemed… distressed by it.” 

Dean bolts upright. “Christ, Cas. You left me — you left me alone with fucking Chuck on my ass — and you think that’s what I’m mad about?” 

Silence festers like an open wound. 

“Come here, Cas,” Dean says, offering the space under his arm. The other one comes up to cup the back of Cas’s head. “You have shit timing.” 

Cas barks out something that sounds like a laugh. “So I do.” Then, muffled by the press of his head into Dean’s shoulder, “I didn’t think you were mad. Shocked, maybe. I only hoped you would understand why I did what I did, and then found myself lacking by the expression on your face.” 

“I get it. I wish I didn’t, but I do. Just promise me you won’t do it again.” 

“If you’ll do the same.” Cas pulls out of Dean’s arms, holds him out at arm’s length. His eyes hold a depth of ardency. 

Dean holds out his pinky. “Pinky promise me,” he says cheekily. 

“Dean, I don’t understand what pinkies have to do —” 

“Don’t question it, just do it.” 

And so he does. Cas loops his pinky around Dean’s, and Dean shakes their hands to make it official. “I’ve known you for ten years now, and somehow you’re still finding ways to confound me.” That’s Cas’s grumpy voice, the _I-don’t-understand-humans_ voice that gets rarer and rarer as the years wear on. It’s cute. 

Dean feels suddenly emboldened. “Can I make my own confession?” He cups both of his hands around Cas’s face and says before he can be stopped, by himself or the universe or anyone else, “I love you too.” 

It’s not like the movies where the world seems to halt on its axis. Cas doesn’t even have the decency to act surprised. The bastard actually smirks and somehow that’s better because it’s Cas, when has Cas ever done what Dean expected him to? 

Without removing his hands from Cas’s face, Dean says with his own shit-eating grin, “Now _that’s_ how you profess your love. Take lessons, lover boy.” 

“I don’t expect I’ll ever need to again.” 

Oh, that fucker. Dean would ask Cas where he learned to be so suave if he weren’t also worried that Cas would say something ridiculous and mood-killing like the _pizza man._ So instead he says, “I’d like to kiss you” and lets Cas lean against him, and the shock as their lips press together is sweet. 

Cas is tender when he threads his fingers through Dean’s hair, his cheeks warm and soft uner Dean’s own fingers. Dean has been with many women over the years, none so much in recent years and not for anything more than a one-night stand in even longer, and it makes him realize how much he’s missed this — this, the mushy brew around his heart and the feeling of being touched by someone he genuinely trusts. Fuck the rest of the world, he could live in this moment forever. 

The moment, however, doesn’t last for very long. Ever the cockblock, Sam calls out for the two of them. He sounds uptight. Dean pulls away from Cas with a grimace, feeling the sudden loss of heat like a panging absence. “I’m calling for a raincheck,” he says pointedly and laughs at Cas’s doe-eyed look. There has to be some sort of brag for making an angel of the lord look like that, Dean thinks smugly, before he and Cas are running off towards the library. 

Miracle is barking enough to give a banshee a run for its money, his hackles raised up. Jack stands just in front of Miracle, flexing his hands at his side. The rift is pulsing fiercely again. Something else is trying to crawl from the rift just as Cas did. But where Cas’s struggle to break through the rift were sluggish and clumsy, this new player’s attempts are damn near erratic. 

Sam tosses Dean his shotgun. Dean catches it and squares it up to aim. “We good to shoot this one on sight?” 

“Can’t think of any more friendly faces that might come through.” 

The thing that eventually pierces through and falls into the Bunker is up on its feet in a second. For the second time that day, Dean does a double take at its face. “Is that… Meg?” 

Sam sounds nearly breathless. “No, that’s the Empty.” 

Damn it all to hell, of course it is. Dean glances to Cas at his side, then back to the Empty. Thank whoever’s in charge that Cas is keeping his fucking mouth shut, tensed for an actual fight this time, but still Dean fears those black coils snatching his angel away again. 

All four Winchesters stiffen when the Empty rears its head, lank strands of hair falling in front of its eyes. Its fingers are curled nearly into claws, its mouth fixed into a snarl, and it paces unsteadily now. Dean fires off a shot into its torso. As expected, the Empty barely flinches. When it turns on Dean with a spark of rage, Cas’s powers, diminished as they are, flare up. 

Dean chuckles nervously. “Would you believe me if I said my fingers slipped?” 

The Empty twitches as it takes a step towards Dean. “You,” it growls. The sound is strained, like its voice was caught in a voice. “You wouldn’t stop talking.” 

“What?” Dean is confused, and it’s not just his earlier sleepiness making an ill-timed comeback. 

“I just wanted to sleep but you idiots won’t let me!” 

Brandishing his blade, Cas approaches the Empty cautiously. “How are you here? I thought you had to be summoned to this plane.” 

The Empty laughs, a ragged sounding thing. “God’s dead, didn’t you hear? Or as good as dead. You all saw to that.” It looks at Jack now, and though the boy glares back fiercely he also startles a bit at the intensity. “Chuck’s rules don’t fly with his mojo running loose.” 

“Sonuvabitch.” Dean grits his teeth. Figures there’d be a catch to stripping God bare. 

“I just want to sleep.” The Empty shuffles. All its movements are choppy and listless. The thing’s going off the total deep end. 

“So you’re the only big bad left, congrats,” Sam says. By now, he’s lowered his gun — if this breaks into a fight, they’re more than screwed. Dean hopes Sammy’s found something in that spellbook or maybe has a lullaby stashed in his back pocket. “Nobody’s around to keep you awake anymore. You’re free to go to sleep anytime you want.” 

It screeches, an ungodly sound that has the four of them covering their ears. “You don’t get it! I can’t fall asleep with you four around. You’ll fuck everything up like you always do and I’ll get to sleep again.” Its snarl twists into something painful, its eyes watering up. Dean feels something almost like pity. Almost. 

“You’re a cranky baby that missed its nap, we get it. Skip to the part where you leave and never come back.” 

With a cry and a sudden sharp jerk, the Empty is barreling into Dean. It knocks him to the floor, squeezing his throat with its hands. Dean bats uselessly at it with the butt of his gun. Sam and Cas spring into action — Sam kicks the Empty in its side while Cas pries it off of Dean and attacks it with his blade. Tired as the Empty claims to be, it sure gives as good as it gets, jabbing Cas for every hit he lands on it. All the while it wails, “I just want to sleep, let me go to sleep!” 

Sam offers Dean a hand up. “You find anything in that book yet?” Dean asks, rubbing his throat. 

“I’m working on it.” The words are tight, tense. 

“Work faster then, or we’re screwed. We don’t even know if this thing _can_ die.” And with that, Dean jumps back into the fight, loading off another round into the Empty’s skull. 

It’s enough of a distraction for Miracle to get in his own hit against the Empty. Looking for all the world like Cujo, Miracle snaps his teeth around the back of the creature’s thigh. The Empty howls. Black, sludgy ooze bubbles up from the wound. 

“Good boy, Mir,” Dean calls. 

Cas plunges his blade up through the Empty’s ribcage, twisting it in its lungs for good measure. The blade comes out slick with more of the black sludge, and though the wound seems to wind the Empty, it quickly heals. 

“I’m tired of this game,” it says, and swipes it arm to the side. It sends Miracle skidding across the room into one of the bookcases. He whimpers, making no attempt to get up, but otherwise seems fine. This doesn’t stop Dean from seething. 

“Hey, that’s my dog!” Dean rushes the Empty, but it turns its powers back on Dean before he can make a hit. Twisting its hand into a fist, the Empty squeezes the air from Dean’s lungs. It does the same to Sam, who drops a spellbook as he too collapses. 

In the back corner, Jack also doubles over. Jack’s hands are clenched into fists, his eyes squeezed closed, as if he means to wrench his powers into action. The boy chokes as the Empty tugs on his guts. Jack’s eyes open to the whites as he sucks in nothing but empty air. Dean watches as they then go wide at something nearby, hidden from Dean’s view by a messy stack of books. 

“You are the peskiest soul I’ve ever seen,” the Empty hisses. “If I could obliterate your soul, I would. Be done with all your trouble. I’ll settle for burying you in the deepest soul not even you could wake up from.” The Empty loosens its grip on the others’ bodies just enough to send Cas slamming up the wall. 

Jack, outside the Empty’s attention, gasps as his hand catches on whatever he’s spotted. He pulls it close to his body, manages to stand with it for half a moment, though ultimately his knees buckle again. It is, however, enough time for Dean to identify it as Billie’s scythe. 

_Of course._ No more God, no more Darkness, no more Devil or Death. What’s to keep a Winchester from adding the Empty to the hit list of immortals? Lungs on fire, Dean pounds his fist on the floor and calls Jack’s name with the last of the breath in his body. _To me,_ he mouths, pointing to the scythe. Jack maneuvers the scythe around the table and slides it across the floor to Dean. 

Meanwhile, Cas struggles to raise his hands to take another swing at the Empty. The creature wrestles the blade from his death-grip on it. “I’ll be able to sleep soon,” it says, all its desperation on display. “And you’ll be back where you belong, and everything will be as it should.” 

Dean heaves himself to his feet. Black dots are starting to creep into his vision. He suspects that he sounds like a dying fish, gasping as he is. The scythe holds him steady as his plants his feet into solid ground. 

Vicious to the end, Cas spits at the Empty, “You’ll never be able to sleep again. It will never be silent for you ever again. Not after all this.” This — this is how the last fight against the Empty could have gone down. Go down swinging, Dean always said. But now, watching Cas stare down the tip of his own death again, Dean can’t think of anything worse. Where’s the valor in dying? 

There is no fanfare, no villainous quip, when the Empty raises Cas’s blade above its head, poised to kill. Nor is there any sense of victory when Dean surges across the room, the Empty’s powers a vice around his heart. It’s not supposed to happen like this. I just got you back, Dean thinks. The horrid biting hole in his chest can’t just be from the Empty’s powers mashing his guts into pulp anymore. 

He thinks, the words building in his mind like a prayer, Please don’t leave me again. 

Dean swings the scythe into the Empty’s throat just as the creature brings the blade down on Cas. 

The Empty has no time to scream before its head is falling from its shoulders, followed by the decaying of its own body into black sludge. Behind Dean, Sam and Jack gag on a sudden influx of air. They rise to their feet as Cas steps away from the wall clutching his shoulder. The Empty plunged the blade into Cas’s shoulder right, its aim for his heart disrupted by the clean slice of the scythe. Cas’s wound will sting for a while unless he can muster up some mojo to fix it, but it won’t kill him. Not this time. 

Dean is a little breathless, giddy in that post-battle-adrenaline way. He passes the scythe between his hands, grins and says, “Come on, someone admit it, that was pretty cool.” 

Sam scoffs. “Yeah, so badass, Dean.” 

“I thought it was,” Jack says perhaps too sincerely, leaving Dean to puzzle over who may or may not have taught the kid sarcasm. 

The rift makes a sudden sizzling sound. On the floor, the puddle formerly known as the Empty evaporates, its particles drawn back into the rift before its edges converge and seal shut like a cauterized wound. 

“That was… deceptively easy,” Cas says. He approaches the space where the void just was, pokes at it with his finger and comes up blank. Dean is inclined to agree with his assessment. 

Jack seems decidedly less concerned as he sits on edge of the table. “The Empty’s definitely gone. The thing, not the place. That’s still there.” He swings his legs, looks over at Cas, and asks, “Should we be worried about that? In the same way that no new Death means more ghosts?” 

Cas, bless his heart, tosses his hands up and sighs. “I don’t know.” 

“No?” Sam says, hazarding a guess. “Same thing as there being no more god but Heaven’s still intact. Right?” 

Dean sits on the floor next to Miracle. The scythe he places down next to him. Whichever reaper takes Death’s mantle next is absolutely going to have to pry this bad boy from his cold dead hands. He runs a hand down Miracle’s side -- no wounds, thank god. Miracle shuffles into a sitting position and licks the side of Dean’s face. “I say we mark this bridge as ‘cross it when we get to it.’ What do you say, huh? I think we’ve earned an easy win for once anyway.” 

“It’s not like any of these books are gonna tell us anything.” Sam nudges his fallen spellbook with his toe. 

“So we wait for something to inevitably go wrong then.” It is undoubtedly a question, though Cas’s flat delivery phrases it more as a statement of vague disapproval. Dean hardly likes the idea of waiting for the other shoe to drop but at this point he’s not inclined to care a whole lot. 

“Like we always do, man,” he says. “Only this time with less dread. I’m holding you all to that.” His knees creak when he stands. Miracle stands with him, nudging his head into Dean’s leg. 

“I think this is a terrible plan. But,” and here Cas slides into place next to Dean, grasping one of Dean’s hands and threading their fingers together, “if you insist, I’ll go along with it.” 

Dean’s knees feel weak all of a sudden. He feels his mouth open in a goofy grin. Sam raises his eyebrows, eyes drawn to their clasped hands, but says nothing more. Jack seems to barely notice at all. Instead, the boy’s forehead scrunches up in confusion and he says, “What did the Empty mean when it said Dean was talking a lot?” 

“Hm?” Dean looks up, hardly remembering the throwaway line. “It was probably nothing. Thing was half out of its mind.” 

“Actually, you were rather noisy,” Cas says and he even flashes a hint of a grin. 

“Care to elaborate?” Sam asks. 

“My absence seemed to have made Dean a devout man.” Cas squats down next to Dean, offering the palm of his hand for Miracle to smell. To Dean, he says, “I heard all your prayers, Dean.” 

Dean’s mouth gapes. “All of them?” 

“Yes.” 

Which means he’d heard Dean confess his love earlier than today, back when Dean was in the thick of discovery. Dean feels the tips of his ears start to burn. He’s nothing if not embarrassed. Those prayers had become half diary, half confessional by the end. And Cas had heard every last word. Jesus Christ. “Please tell me there was at least some interdimensional static.” 

“I think they’re what woke me up,” Cas says, and it’d be sweet if it weren’t such a blatant misdirection. Sam starts cackling in the corner. If he had anything at hand besides the scythe, Dean would throw it at Sam in a heartbeat. Cas continues, “Your prayers might have even opened that rift for me, though I suppose God’s rogue powers helped loosen the barrier. Which, by the way, might be a problem for us down the road.” 

“Wouldn’t expect anything different,” Dean mutters. 

“I really should thank you, Dean,” Cas says with open sincerity, Dean’s name reverent on his tongue. 

Dean’s own tongue goes numb. “Uh, no problem. Call us even-steven, yeah?” Then, before his knees can give out like a lovestruck fool, he says abruptly, “Well, I’m beat. I’ll see you all later for dinner. C’mon Cas, you can make sure I don’t get lost on the way there.” 

He drags Cas away by the hand now, tightening their hold. Dean looks back over his shoulder quickly, catches Sam giving him two thumbs up and a wink once Cas’s back is turned. Bitch, Dean mouths. 

Sam laughs at him silently, dismissing Dean with a wave as he sets about tidying the library. Already Dean is scheming ways to embarrass him in front of Eileen, but those thoughts turn to dust when Cas leads him into his room and shuts the door. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was not supposed to be 10K words. This was not supposed to be 10K words. This was not supposed to be 10K words. This was not supposed to be…


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